Science: Kindergarten

Learning Benefits

Very often, teachers will teach specific science lessons once to a few a times a week. During this time the class will learn about a certain topic, for example, water, weather, animals, or plants and nature, through the use of books, demonstrations with actual objects, explorations outside or interactive activities. In addition, kindergartners are natural scientists as they play and explore the world around them with their curious minds. Very often, science lessons overlap with math and literacy as teachers use tools such as books, graphs and measurement to help students learn. Since specific science topics learned in a kindergarten class vary across schools, find out which specific science topics your child will be learning and find ways to explore and learn about these topics at home.

In order to build science skills. your kindergartner:

Is a natural born scientist, constantly exploring, observing, questioning and experimenting as she plays and interacts with her surroundings.

Learns new facts about a variety of topics.

Explores and experiments with the world around her and with objects provided by the teacher.

Makes observations and records what she sees and learns using graphs, pictures and words.

Science Activities

Observe Nature: Pick something in nature -- plants, the moon a rain storm, etc. -- and observe it with your child for a few days or even weeks. Ask your child to draw pictures of what she notices, patterns and differences between things. You can write things down as well. Do this repeatedly and keep a science journal of different objects.

Inspect Your Food: Cut open different fruits and vegetables and see what you find inside! Talk about the seeds, the difference between fruits and vegetables and other things you notice. Try planting some of the seeds!

Make Science Collages: Use pictures from magazines, newspapers or online (with supervision) to create collages of different categories of science objects, such as animals, plants birds and fish.

Learn About a Favorite Animal: Pick an animal your child loves and learn about it. Read about it, see it at a zoo or farm or look at pictures online. Then help your child create a collage of she what she learned about that animal using pictures and texts.